django-impersonate

Simple application to allow superusers to "impersonate" other
non-superuser accounts.

Dependencies

It was written for Python 2.4+ and Django 1.2.4 but it should
work just fine with Django 1.1+

It depends on your project using the django.contrib.session framework.

Install

PIP:

pip install django-impersonate

Basic Manual Install:

$ python setup.py build
$ sudo python setup.py install

Alternative Install (Manually):

Place impersonate directory in your Python path. Either in your Python
installs site-packages directory or set your $PYTHONPATH environment
variable to include a directory where the webutils directory lives.

== You can now impersonate another user by hitting the following path:

/impersonate/<user-id>/

Replace <user-id> with the user id of the user you want to impersonate.

While in impersonation "mode" the request.user object will have an
"is_impersonate" attribute set to True. So if you wanted to check in your
templates or view, you just do something like...

{% if user._impersonate %} .... {% endif %}

You can reference this URL with reverse() or the {% url %} template tag
as 'impersonate-start'

== To remove the impersonation, hit the following path:

/impersonate/stop/

You can reference this URL with reverse() or the {% url %} template tag
as 'impersonate-stop'

== To list all users you can go to:

/impersonate/list/

This will render the template 'impersonate/list_users.html' and will pass
the following in the context:

users - queryset of all users

paginator - Django Paginator instance

page - Current page of objects (from Paginator)

page_number - Current page number, defaults to 1

You can reference this URL with reverse() or the {% url %} template tag
as 'impersonate-list'

== To search all users you can go to:

/impersonate/search/

This will render the template 'impersonate/search_users.html' and will pass
the following in the context:

users - queryset of all users

paginator - Django Paginator instance

page - Current page of objects (from Paginator)

page_number - Current page number, defaults to 1

query - The search query that was entered

The view will expect a GET request and look for the 'q' variable being passed.
If present, it will search the user entries with the value of 'q'. The fields
searched are:

User.username, User.first_name, User.last_name, User.email

You can reference this URL with reverse() or the {% url %} template tag
as 'impersonate-search'

== To allow some users to impersonate other users

You can optionally allow only some non-superuser and non-staff users to impersonate by
adding a IMPERSONATE_CUSTOM_ALLOW setting. Create a function that takes a
request object, and based on your rules, returns True if the user is allowed to
impersonate or not.

== To limit what users a user can impersonate

By, optionally, setting the IMPERSONATE_CUSTOM_USER_QUERYSET you can control
what users can be impersonated. It takes a request object of the user, and
returns a QuerySet of users. This is used when searching for users to
impersonate, when listing what users to impersonate, and when trying to start
impersonation.

Settings

The following settings are available for django-impersonate:

IMPERSONATE_REDIRECT_URL

This is the URL you want to be redirected to after you have chosen to
impersonate another user. If this is not present it will check for
the LOGIN_REDIRECT_URL setting and fall back to '/' if neither is
present. Value should be a string containing the redirect path.

IMPERSONATE_PAGINATE_COUNT

This is the number of users to paginate by when using the list or
search views. This defaults to 20. Value should be an integer.

IMPERSONATE_REQUIRE_SUPERUSER

If this is set to True, then only users who have 'is_superuser' set
to True will be allowed to impersonate other users. Default is False.
If False, then any 'is_staff' user will be able to impersonate other
users.

Note: Regardless of this setting, a 'is_staff' user will not be
allowed to impersonate a 'is_superuser' user.

Value should be a boolean (True/False)

If the IMPERSONATE_CUSTOM_ALLOW is set, then that custom function is used, and
this setting is ignored.

IMPERSONATE_URI_EXCLUSIONS

Set to a list/tuple of url patterns that, if matched, user
impersonation is not completed. It defaults to:

(r'^admin/',)

If you do not want to use even the default exclusions then set
the setting to an emply list/tuple.

IMPERSONATE_CUSTOM_USER_QUERYSET

A string that represents a function (e.g. 'module.submodule.mod.function_name')
that allows more fine grained control over what users a user can impersonate.
It takes one argument, the request object, and should return a QuerySet. Only
the users in this queryset can be impersonated.

This function will not be called when the request has an unauthorised users,
and will only be called when the user is allowed to impersonate (cf.
IMPERSONATE_REQUIRE_SUPERUSER and IMPERSONATE_CUSTOM_ALLOW )

Regardless of what this function returns, a user cannot impersonate a
superuser, even if there are superusers in the returned QuerySet.

It is optional, and if it is not present, the user can impersonate any user
(i.e. the default is User.objects.all())

IMPERSONATE_CUSTOM_ALLOW

A string that represents a function (e.g. 'module.submodule.mod.function_name')
that allows more fine grained control over who can use the impersonation. It
takes one argument, the request object, and should return True to allow
impesonation. Regardless of this setting, the user must be logged in to
impersonate. If this setting is used, IMPERSONATE_REQUIRE_SUPERUSER is ignored.

It is optional, and if it is not present, the previous rules about superuser
and IMPERSONATE_REQUIRE_SUPERUSER apply.

Copyright & Warranty

All documentation, libraries, and sample code are
Copyright 2011 Peter Sanchez <petersanchez@gmail.com>. The library and
sample code are made available to you under the terms of the BSD license
which is contained in the included file, BSD-LICENSE.

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